Final Flight of the Phoenix
by Mackatlaw
Summary: Postapocalyptic, not technically a romance, contains the last meeting of two heroes and what happens next. The world is bleeding. At least, that's what Jean Grey thought as she walked through the ruins of the machines under the open sky.
1. Chapter 1

The Final Flight of the Phoenix

by Mackatlaw

The world is bleeding. At least, that's what Jean Grey thought as she walked through the ruins of the machines under the open sky. The sun shone down bright red, exactly the color of freshly-freed blood, through the pollution's haze that now never went away. This was the remains of the storage yard outside a bombed-out Sentinel factory, making it an unlikely meeting place for one of the last surviving X-Men. Usually these factories were rebuilt, but this area had been abandoned by everyone, here in the nowhere land between mutant strike zones and human protectorates. Everything was dull, rusted, except for the occasional gleam of imperishable weapons-grade metal that made her wonder if all the machines were truly inoperative. She glanced down at her EM unit. A few low-grade electromagnetic fields from some of the batteries had survived, but no energy sources large enough to be a threat. She shrugged. At least, not a threat to her. She was more worried about any witnesses, but the only things alive to her sight were the tall, misshapen weeds growing around the poisoned earth. The closest living mind she felt was thirty miles away in Las Vegas.

She was dressed in black, modified combat-armor with a long traveller's duster over it. She didn't need the protection. She just liked the distance it gave her from everyone else. Jean went her own way, and the smart survivors knew enough to let her be. The ones who weren't smart tended to lose their survivor status. The only mark of color on her outfit was the Phoenix, inscribed in green and yellow on the scales of her chestplate. The sun's color fitted her well, though. The only gifts she gave to people these days were blood and death, red and black, and the only thing she felt was cold. A fiber optic cable stirred idly in the breeze, hanging suspended between two telephone poles.

Idly, she pulled the cable down with invisible hands, telekinetic talons bringing the black strand over for closer inspection. She ran her hand over it, optic strands now dark and powerlessAt the touch of flesh, light glowedsparkling with rainbows inside the red corona of her power's effect. She could power a whole forest of cables, let America talk to Europe. That is, if there had been anyone to talk to there, or the cables to do it with. Jean shrugged and tossed her plaything aside. When she needed to talk with someone, they'd hear her. Telepaths were only as alone as they wanted to be.

"Ah, you're just saying that. You always were a people person, Jean."

"Logan!" She snapped in surprise at his internal voice, sometimes welcome, sometimes not. "Are you here? Did you find what we were looking for?"

An onlooker would have heard nothing but her talking to herself, a bad habit left over from too many days alone. But her vocalization was broadcast on the telepathic bands as well, and its recipient chuckled in his head at her.

"You'll have to see for yourself. Try and find me."

She sighed. Some things never changed. She still had a temper, and Logan could still be frustrating. He had been the only other X-Men on the scene when Scott died, and the transference and acceptance of her husband's link had been the tie that kept her from destroying Westchester. Scott's death was why she didn't use his last name anymore, why memories of her beloved were too beautiful and painful to recall. Jean and Logan weren't lovers now, though they'd tried. They could never be. They were too much alike, too explosive. Each was afraid to open up emotionally more than they already had, because if they let themselves go, they might never come back. Humanity was an act of will for them; she close to losing her identity to the stars, and he close to losing his to the animal inside. But they were more than friends, Logan nearer to her than anyone except Scott had ever been or would be again.

She kept moving, mentally scanning for Logan's presence. He could play games better than her passive scan, but not better than her active. Like her, he was an Alpha Class, as had been all of the X-Men. They shared something else in common, too; they had a plan. It wasn't much of one, granted, but they'd spent the last ten years working on it. Jean could "hear" him coming now. He was being very good, stealthy as he slipped through forests of wire and antennae, behind the corpses of burned-out robot hulks, and climbed over a jeep that had been crushed by a giant's hand. His psi-traces would have gone unnoticed to anyone with a Cerebro unit, and even most full telepaths would never know he was here.

But she would. She'd always know where he was when she wanted to. His mind would always be next to hers, the pulse of his thoughts like the heartbeat of a lover. If she wanted, she could reach over and touch him with a thought, cross the screen. If she was death, then he was fire, all animal senses and anger and a predator's awareness of his environment, hidden between mental shields on a now-instinctive level. The nearness chafed, rubbing them raw sometimes, and they couldn't stand to be near each for long in the flesh. Their bond kept them sane. But sanity had cost them. Impatient for the news, she kicked a pebble with her boots and delved into his mind as she made her way through the rubble. Grudgingly, he let her. Awareness of the present fell away as her body guided her through the ruins, while her mind relieved the past. In the memory playback, Logan was talking. From his point of view, sheheard him say"Tell me that this is gonna work, and that I didn't hike all the way up here for nothin'." His voice was deep, gutteral, almost inhuman. He no longer used the human tonal ranges much, and he preferred the company of the surviving animals to that of the people.

Through his eyes, she saw Tony Stark, the former Avenger Iron Man, wired into his laboratory. He looked old and eaten up by cancer, the generators and life support plugged into his armor all that kept him alive. He didn't have much longer to live, but he was still the best inventor the human race ever had. He made adjustments on the display in front of him, where robotic waldo arms held a mace-like rod that was covered with circuitry. Then the mutant Forge, his bionic hand moving spiderlike to keep up with his flesh and blood one, bent down and keyed something into a computer. He straightened and wiped the sweat from his face with a bandana holding back his hair, black and as long as ever. Forge regarded Logan coolly, the zoom lenses that had replaced his eyes tracking him with digital precision. He pressed one last button, and the black rod on the console lit up with beautiful silver displays, the circuitry coming alive with light. It was about a foot long and as thick as a person's thumb. The console unlocked, and Tony Stark moved his hover wheelchair over to take the rod out. His hair and mustache were white, but his eyes were sharp, and he caressed the rod like the technological wizard that he was. He held the device up for display.

Jean paused the memory image in mid-recollection. Tucking her hands in her pockets, she headed for the prearranged meeting point, determined not to give Logan the pleasure of his game. "Who cares?" she said to her unseen companion, swimming through his thoughts. "Skip the introduction; tell me if it worked. Do you have it? Stop moving for a minute and I'll fly over there."

"Jean, we tell it my way or not at all. Just settle down, okay

"They're dead, right?"she said offhandedly. "What's the big deal? Did you get it?"

He literally snarled at that, pushing the red haze of his anger at her. "Have some respect for the fallen. And stop rummaging around in my mind!"

She drew back, abashed and puzzled. Sometimes she forgot to have feelings, but Logan's were always so clear for her, the somber tinge of the memory unmistakable. It had been like looking at the faded yellow patina on an old black and white photograph, only emotion, not age, colored this memory. The tension in the link and distraction, jolted her fully back into body awareness. Logan had always been able to get to her, and she let him push her. But then, a lot of things had changed in ten years. He didn't used to be the sane one. Or was she really insane? Jean could wonder about it, but she didn't know if she would be able to tell a difference. The Phoenix waiting outside always looked, always wanted to play. If he didn't push her, one day she would never come home, never come back to the finite. The two had always been close, sometimes uncomfortably so, reading each other's emotions no matter how they tried to hide. They had such basic needs, fit together on such a primal, destructive level. They would have destroyed each other, she knew. Logan never accepted that then, but he did now.

Jean frowned and hastened her walk through the yard, trying to get visual confirmation of her hopes. Impatient, she sighed and reached out again through the link, extending a symbolic white flag of penitent-feeling. The humans had built the factory out here in the first place because the area was already badlands, already uncomfortably close to the nuclear testing sites. None of the other mutants had any business out here. The humans were mostly dead or sterile and in sanctuaries, thanks to the radiation damage from the nukes and Magneto's death. Long-distance communication and satellite responses were largely blocked by damage to the ionosphere, but nobody really wanted to talk to each other anymore anyway. The remaining mutants had split America up into protection zones, squabbling over the remnants like children. No one had any reason to come here anymore but the truly desperate, the fearless and the suicidal. Idly, she wondered which of them she was. Possibly all three.

At least telepathy still worked. Jean peered eagerly through Logan's eyes and reentered the past of the laboratory, as Tony Stark and Forge began moving again. She watched the thumb-thick rod full of technology like it was a magic wand. She didn't care how the science worked, but she let the memory play on anyway. As the Indian inventor moved around the room, her attention commented idly on the scene. Jean sometimes thought that Forge hated the flesh so much that he'd transfer his mind into a computer if he could. The original missing hand and leg had been lost in Vietnam. After the Mutant Wars, he'd lost more than that. The difference was now, he didn't bother making the replacements look human, or even humanoid. He just made them modular.

Contact restored, she lived the memory again while she guided herself by telekinesis through the broken concrete, eyes blind to the present. She ignored the babble of voices at first and tuned in on just the visual, doing the telepathic equivalent of lounging on a bed, head propped up on her elbows, watching the two inventors. She hoped they'd finally succeeded at something. They were good with tangibles; not so good with the broader problems. Forge and Stark couldn't fix the birthrate problem in time. They couldn't even stabilize the technological infrastructure, because once they started rebuilding, everyone would want a piece and the devil with waiting. It had happened once already. That's why they'd had to relocate to the Rockies, as far away from the controlled and contested zones as possible.

Forge was the human's counterpart, the mutant who could invent anything if he put his mind to it, craft any device if he had enough time and materials. If either found it ironic that their craft had been used by parties on all sides of the genome equation, government, freedom fighter, and terrorist alike, to wage their bloody craft, they no longer commented on the obvious. The end of the world had already happened for them, after all; they could restore technology to all those alive, but they couldn't give life back. That had been Essex, Mister Sinister's, province. Him and the Beast. Oh, the two Tom Swift's had tried to fill their shoes -- or paws -- but the genetic map was just too ripped. If the geneticists hadn't been murdered, then maybe they would have found a solution. But they'd never gotten a chance, at least not after everyone got tired of clones and retroviruses.

Oh, here was a good part. She should listen to this.

"It worked," Tony said, the voice of an old man, raspy and tired. "The sample you provided enabled us to incorporate the transmode virus's shapeshifting abilities. That was the last component we needed to realize our design."

"Yes. It's everything you asked for and more," Forge said with pride. "We couldn't test the high-end energy specifications, of course, but everything we could run through shows that it will handle the load. There may be some side effects to the user, but I believe it will be able to accept the Phoenix Force as a suitable power supply."

"Side effects to the user! Forge, we're talking about Jean. What do you mean, side effects?"

What was he talking about? The Phoenix can do anything. She began to think about Scott, and the picture in front of her began to fade.

"No, Logan," the Indian inventor said. "I'm talking about the future. I'm talking about reality. The Phoenix can handle the task physically. There's never been any question about that. The real issue is whether she can handle it mentally. I have no doubts her body will be preserved by the trip. I'm just not sure about the mind."

"Now, listen here..."

Warnings went off in the lab, a yellow light flashing slowly but insistently on the ceiling to the accompaniment of the chorus of Beethoven's "Eroica". The two inventors didn't like to be overly disturbed, even by the necessary evil of a perimeter breach.

Stark calmly began initiating engagement of remote-controlled weapons units through his vocorder and display-unit holograms, while Forge handed Wolverine the device.

"You have to leave now," he said. "Follow the glowing floor plates until you reach the escape pod. We can only guarantee you safe passage outside the immediate combat zone, and then you're on your own."

"You must be crazy if you think I'm going to run! I'll stay and we'll fight them together, just show me where they are."

"No, Logan. They're using scorched-earth tactics. They'll be through our best defensive screens in minutes, and then the destruction will be total. They won't risk leaving us alive again. If you're going to go, you have to go now."

Wolverine growled, but he'd finally learned to choose his fights, and to tell when a battle was lost. He headed down the corridor, and Jean jumped out of his mind and back to present-day and industrial rubble. Standing among the shells of robots and machines, she scrubbed her forehead with her knuckles, trying to remember who she was. Why did her thoughts feel alien, where was her compassion, her awareness that she too was mortal? But then, she wasn't. So she turned her gaze to her destination, and let the past scene fade away. This factory had been the last major plant in operation, until it fell fifteen years ago in a combined strike by Havok's Brotherhood and Sinister's Marauders. The X-Groups had been occupied. Most of them, if they could have stopped it, saw the strike as a blessing and didn't intervene. They were wrong. These machines had been meant to make Sentinels to give the human race breathing room, time to produce gene-therapy for their chromosomes, time to recover from the losses they'd sustained, time to rebuild an oasis of civilization. That had all ended here in the desert, and when the remaining mutants discovered they needed the human race to keep their gene pool from calcifying, it was too late. Mutants were not sufficiently fertile with other mutants

Hank proved that on his own, but everyone else got their proof when the first mutants of the new generation started arriving. Before the war, there hadn't been enough births to have a valid survey sample. After the war, it was too late. A mutant-mutant birth was typically a stillbirth, and usually deformed in the twenty-five percent of live births. Viable mutant children were usually Delta-level mutants of no real power. Human-mutant offspring, however, tended to be more powerful than the mutant parent, and usually inherited a conventional human's physical appearance. The destiny of the mutants and humans had been to interbreed and produce the new race. Now, that would never happen. Unless someone changed all that.

The man she was meeting here was supposed to bring her the tools to start. She turned to meet him, her boots echoing on the metal plates of the walkway that led to the factory itself. And there, in front of the ruins of the hopes of the human race, she met Logan, who they called Wolverine. Like her, he hadn't aged a day, grizzled with sideburns and wild hair, walking with an understated stride and an easy awareness of his surroundings. The army fatigues and black t-shirt showed heavy wear, but the man himself was tireless until you saw his eyes. Logan had seen so much death that it had become a part of him. He fought because he couldn't give up, he fought because he wouldn't die.

Logan looked at her.. "Hiya, Jean. What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" He stood, almost on eye level with her, his stance relaxed, yet always ready to move. It was a battle stance. The samurai he'd loved of Japan cultivated the tea ceremony and the study of art, along with war. She used to think it just a way for them to console themselves with the murder they did, a flimsy pretense at being more than a killer. Now, she knew otherwise. Civilization and art was what kept a fighter sane. A society without warriors had no future, but warriors without society had no purpose. Like her, he travelled light, with little more than a knapsack and a few pouches.

Jean hadn't aged either since that day in 2009, ten years ago. She owed her own cellular stasis to the Phoenix-force, though, not to a healing factor or any other gift of her mutant genes. When she'd given up on being human, she'd given up on aging. Cosmic force running through them, lacing every molecule and atom and quark of her with power. She didn't sleep anymore, either. She didn't have to, and when she dreamed, she lost her controls. She'd woken up more than one from a dream of fighting, to find devastation allaround herAfter Chicago, she gave up on sleeping.

If she had to go on anymore like this, she thought she might give up, might rise into space as a bird of fire, and let go. The Phoenix would never leave her until it had the power to seek a new host, and the only way it could do that was by first consuming a planet full of enough sentient life. The closest it could reach was Earth. Sometimes, she thought about that.

She said as much to her only remaining friend. "Logan, do you ever stop and think why bother?" After all, this world was doomed. The mutants would soon die out to imitate the humans, and the poor bedraggled biosphere would gasp on a little longer before it, too, faded away. Oh, perhaps the world still has another hundred thousand years of so before the weight of mutations destroyed all life, but what's the point of a world without sentients? "Wouldn't it be better to clean it all out, let the planet start over from the ashes and the oceans?"

Logan shook his head. "That's the Phoenix doing your thinking, or feeling rather, and you've got to watch that. It's not a very complicated force, no matter how powerful it is. Things look so simple to it because all it has are duties. Cleanse, Purify, Heal, Destroy. Stuff like that. But you're more than the Phoenix. Maybe it thinks there's was only one way to heal this place, but don't give up on us yet."

Her heart rose. "Logan... Did you keep it? Do you have it?" She couldn't help herself, she had to know.

He said nothing, but invited her mentally inside. She slipped into his mind, the contact familiar and the pathway effortless, walking in like an old lover, with knocks on the door that were always answered, even when they knew better. She read the image there on the surface, not daring to go deeper just yet. She gasped like a school-girl and hugged him, barely tolerated as his muscles jumped at the unaccustomed feel of human contact. He finally relaxed and hugged her back, his fondness for her plain, but the embrace awkward. It was like hugging a wild animal. He could be around her because he liked her, but somewhere along the way, he too had forgotten how to be human.

"Yeah, Jean, I've got it," he said, his voice rough with suppressed excitement. She let him go, but now that she was this close, the trembling on every muscle, tension tightly held with will, was evident. "I've got our ticket back."

He unzipped the battered knapsack and pulled the time-travel device. "It's already programmed for the exact date of Scott's death. All you have to do is press the button on the end, and turn on the juice. It'll do the rest."

Just as nervous, now that their plan was finally ready, she accepted the rod from his outstretched hand, barely refraining from snatching it. She held the rod close.

Logan hesitated. "Jean... They said there might be side effects. Physically, they said no problem. Mentally, they said it might be rockier."

"Oh Logan," she smiled tenderly through eyes that were crying with tears she had thought lost forever. "We both know there's no going back, that there's nothing for either of us here. It's this or nothing. Death now or in the future, what's the difference? The past is what we have left."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I know that. And you're right. Not gonna cry over it. Not even sure I can anymore." He hesitated. "When you see Scott, give him hell for me, okay? Make sure he ducks this time."

Jean frowned. "What do you mean? You're going with me."

He took a deep breath and exhaled. "No, no I'm not. Because what I've been sniffing and what you haven't noticed because you've been busy, is that we're about to be surrounded and overrun. Don't know how many, but it's a lot. They must have trailed me here somehow after they blew up the lab, teleported from out of your psi-range. Probably don't know exactly what we've got, but they want me dead and they won't know they're taking on both of us until it's too late. Jean, I'm sorry."

Her eyes blazed red with fire for a moment. "You're right. I was negligent also. Not a problem, we can take them. Some telekinesis, some destruction, some telepathy... It'll be just like old times."

But her old friend was shaking his head. "No, Jean, this is too important. That time-travel gadget is just too easy to break in a fight; we can't risk it. You don't know how long it's gonna take to make that thing work, so you've got to start now." He clenched his hands and familiar metal claws erupted from their backs. "I'm gonna go buy you some time. I'll head them off, give them something to think about."

"Logan..."

"Jean, I gotta go. Don't make this any harder than it already is."

_Logan, I love you, _she sent, helplessly.

_I love you too. Now go!_

And with that he was gone, racing toward the waiting minds she could now feel all around her, approaching much too fast. But she couldn't stop to follow what was happening with him, so she walled away the psi-link, like she'd walled away her emotions once. She could still feel him, off to one corner, but the sensations were rapidly diminishing. Logan was too intense in a fight; she couldn't stay fully in the present with him with him and still do this. Once her flight started, she didn't know if she'd care enough to check in when she could. The Phoenix felt, oh yes. That was the deal. The Phoenix was her emotions, and they were all-consuming. To lock them away was to shut out the fire, shut out her passion, and it felt so wrong.

She pressed the button and waited. But nothing happened. With a falling sensation in her stomach, she realized she had held the power in for so long this time that it wasn't coming when she wanted. Now that she wanted to lose control, she couldn't.

Dimly, she heard screams as Wolverine cut into the attackers, who from their minds had indeed followed Logan to see where he was going. They didn't want the time-travel device. They didn't even know about it, and if they did, they wouldn't care. After all, for those willing to cling on to life at any price, why help someone who was going to go back and make this all have never happened?

Because somewhen this all went wrong, she thought, and she knew exactly when. It was October 23, 2005, the day that Scott Summers was killed and Jean Grey lost her humanity. If he'd still been alive, he could have rallied the X-Men forces and stopped the war before it went too far. But with him gone, there wasn't any leader left strong enough to resist the call to vengeance, and everything went to hell. She despaired at the thought of failure. But despair wouldn't save her now. Only the Phoenix could. She wasn't human anymore, but she'd become something else. Something different, something elemental. To reach the power, she had to find the element of her that still cared, reach her passion, her emotions.

That was the link. The passion had always been there. The Phoenix was her passion given form. But it wasn't the same. The Phoenix felt about everything, all at once, and she was it and it was she and she was tired of pretending there was any difference whatsoever. She was the Phoenix. The Phoenix was her. "I accept," she said softly, and held the rod out in front of her, held slightly tilted like a wand ready to strike.

She said a quiet farewell to Logan, who she could feel dying, and instead of shutting him out, accepted her pain, accepted her emotions, accepted the thoughts of everyone around her. Accepted that they had come to an End here on this world, and that there was only one way for the Phoenix to make an ending for herself. So she reached out for the power, and sought the Beginning.

Fire and light erupted all around her, and her mouth opened in exaltation. Every living thing with ears to hear went deaf as far away as Las Vegas, and the sound blew away the atmosphere. But she no longer needed to breathe. She threw her arms up to the heavens as they blazed all around her with fire, the raptor-display of energy suddenly visible to everyone for miles around. Power blazed through her, emotions and heat and life and there was no difference, was no separation. The two were one again and they were alive, one but not the same, for the force was nothing without her to direct it and she was nothing without its passion. Together, they were passion and will, and they were alive. She could no longer tell where one ended and one began, and every cell in her body ached with joy as the power unleashed itself. The wings... Oh, God, the wings. If anyone was still looking down, they could have seen the display from space.

She'd lost all sense of her individual human body, suspended somewhere in the cosmic fire, but she felt the currents of space and the flow of energy and gravity and the connections everywhere. She wasn't human. She was better than human. Then she was flying, suspended above the Earth, somehow holding it in her talons as the oceans boiled. She screamed and prepared to feed, needing the energy to sustain her. But as she wrapped herself around the planet and began the process, the time travel device, already long forgotten from her no-longer human awareness, finally activated. With a horrible wrenching sensation, she realized that her very essence was being drawn into a tiny speck of metal, like some black hole sucking up infinity. Human emotions and thoughts began to reemerge as the pain tore at her. She realized that Stark and Forge must have planned this all along, must have known it would require the death agonies of the Phoenix and the rebirth that came with it, to power the device.

Death was a one-way trip for everyone but the Phoenix.

But -- if it killed the Phoenix -- killed her -- who would she be when she woke up? Memories, sensations, her sense of self, they were all coming apart and falling into the void. It was more than she could take, but she had no choice. The pain was unbearable, but nobody took it away from her, no one let her go unconsciousness. She screamed her defiance at an uncaring cosmos, ripping her human lungs raw as the Raptor's own voice shook dust on the moon, and accepted the challenge. Her identity was long gone now. She never knew how long this lasted, because there was no one to ask. But everything was stripped from her but defiance, her core, and that too was being sucked inevitably away. There were no thoughts, no past or future, only the present and the sense of striving, of refusal. This was what she had wanted, what she had to do, but she couldn't relent. The Phoenix never died easily. It couldn't. The nature of life incarnate is to live. But the lights dimmed anyway.

Finally, the lights went dark completely, and then the last of her was drawn into the device as the discorporation completed, and her essence finished the activation. The rod hung suspended in space hundreds of miles from the earth's surface, somewhere between Earth and the Moon. The last of the fiery glow entered into the circuits that bridged now and forever, and the Phoenix finally died. But the nature of life is also to die, for all things must die. But death is never eternal. For to be reborn, first you must die. And with the Phoenix's death, the device finally finished its job. Little did the makers know, but it worked better than they suspected, yet not as they envisioned.

Somewhen in the backyard of a mansion in Westchester, without fanfare, a red-headed woman appeared. There wasn't even a clap of air as volume was displaced. Instead, reality was simply rearranged. First there was something, and then there was something else. And that someone was Jean Grey, the Phoenix. She opened her eyes, the pain gone and memories of the flight through time already beginning to fade. Suddenly unsteady on her feet, she opened her eyes and then stared in disbelief .

The X-Men were playing badminton out on the lawn, girls against boys. A net had been set up and four teammates were volleying each other, trying to knock the birdie over the net. Girls were on one team, boys on another. Scott and Piotr were playing on one side, the first in shorts and white t-shirt, red goggles and tousled brown hair. Colossus held the racket carefully with his greater height and strength, even in human form, but still swung and knocked the white piece of plastic out of bounds. He sighed in irritation. The other side cheered.

"Toss it over here! Our serve!" Jean yelled. "Finally, we're going to show you how the girls play." Storm pushed her long white locks out of her eyes and raised her hand. "Does this mean it's my turn to serve?"

Phoenix blinked in disbelief, then anger. This couldn't be right. If she was looking at herself, then she had overshot the timeline. This wasn't 2006, shortly before Scott's death. From the younger looks of everyone, especially herself, twenty years in the past. How long ago, she wasn't quite sure. She'd simply have to ask.

The badminton game continued to be played, and Piotr tossed the birdie over to Ororo, not trusting his racket to get it there. Beside him, Scott chided, "Peter, don't hit it so hard next time. This isn't baseball or even golf. The game is all about precision and accuracy."

Peter sighed. "Can I say I've heard the talk about team training and organized sports as a substitute for the Danger Room the first time, so we can continue playing?"

"If you want. Just remember, look at where your opponents are, then aim for where they're not, as long as you keep within the boundaries."

The birdie bounced off Scott's head.

"Hey!"

"What was that part about observing your opponents again?" Peter said dryly.

Scott grumbled and dropped the birdie from his hand, tapping it with the racket back to the other side, where a delighted Storm caught it. She simply smiled, but Jean blew her lover a kiss. "Heads up!"

The older Jean stared and tapped her foot. She was standing on the sidelines naked, yet no one noticed. "Excuse me!" she said. Her red hair begun to burn slightly with phosphorescent light. "I'm standing right here. No one blows Scott a kiss but me."

She stopped for a moment puzzled to consider what had happened. Something was off.

"You know, you're supposed to announce before you serve…"

Peter elbowed Scott in the ribs. "Let it go, my friend, especially if you want to be on good terms with her later tonight. Is there not a movie in the den?"

Scott's cheeks flushed red with embarrasment and he coughed. "Your point is well-taken." He raised his racket to defend his side of the grass.

Jean looked down at herself. She seemed to be standing partway in the grass, but she didn't feel the soil. She put a hand down to touch the soil, and it went straight through the well-kept lawn. She was insubstantial. That explained many things. To the world around her, she was a ghost, able to see but not touch. The only thing solid to her was her own flesh, tangible as she seemed to herself. The world was out of synch, or was it? The last memory she had before the gateway was being torn apart, energies dissipating. Perhaps the flesh hadn't come through. Instead, only psychic energy, consciousness.

The teams volleyed back and forth, Scott making an acrobatic roll to reach a corner and lobby back a shot from Jean, who promptly knocked it right back. Peter raised his racket like an entemlogist hunting a rare butterfly, hunching slightly preparing to capture the birdie as soon as it came near. Experimentally, Phoenix raised a hand and pointed at the birdie. It swerved out of bounds.

"Hey! No powers!" Scott yelled.

Storm looked indignant. "I am not using my winds. I would not cheat."

Scott looked at Jean, the likelier culprit. Jean crossed her arms, nose in the air. "For your information, I don't need my powers to cheat. I'm beating you fair and square."

Clearly a body was needed to better effect events. Being a ghost, powers or not, was not what she had in mind when she decided on this plan. No, flesh and blood, and the ability to touch Scott was required. Her younger self was already here, and the timeline must stay unaltered in all major events until the crucial point in New York. Therefore, the steps were obvious. She strode firmly towards the X-Men, feet leaving no trace on the grass as she crossed.

Jean continued to argue with her boyfriend while Peter looked exasperated and Storm tried to calm events. Ororo didn't like arguing; it upset her. Already clouds were gathering in the sky above them. If nothing was done quickly, everyone would be playing in the rain. Phoenix soon reached her other self and touched a hand to Jean's temple, more for orientation than anything else. Then she slipped inside Jean's body and mind with a flash of light, and Jean collapsed to the ground, clutching her head.


	2. Chapter 2

Jean opened her eyes inside the med unit. The room lacked the equipment of her day, the technology she remembered. The gene splicer was primitive by her standards; there was no autodoc or isolation tank. The Shi'ar technology hadn't even been put in yet. That told her more than anything about when she was. It had to be before first actual contact with the Empire and Lilandra, which meant Professor Xavier was still on the premises. That could be a potential problem. She sat up on the examining table. The padded metal felt soft under her legs, and she stretched arms lazily, enjoying the movement.

The lights came on automatically as sensors detected movement, and a sleepy Scott Summers rose his head from sleep. He'd been napping in a corner chair, head on his chest, keeping silent vigil over his loved one. The brown eyes were unreadable behind the red visor, hair tousled with lack of a comb, but Jean could always read his emotions. He was concerned, worried, afraid something was wrong. He also needed someone to brush that hair.

"Jean? You're awake! Thank God." He stood and came by her side, hand touching shoulder tentatively, afraid he might hurt her with a strong embrace, as if she was spun glass. "We were worried. You've been out for six hours, and most of the others have gone to bed. I couldn't let you wake up by yourself. Do you need Moira to look at you, or Xavier?"

Jean laughed and pulled him to her fondly to sit beside her on the table. "Scott, oh Scott, it's been so long. I'd forgotten how much I missed you. You need to brush your hair, you know that? She ran her fingers through his hair, delighting in the soft feel under her fingertips.

Scott hugged her back, startled and a little worried, but happier. "Jean? Six hours isn't that long to be apart, but you did worry us. Maybe I should get the Professor. You had some strange scans on the EEG when we tested you for a stroke or an attack. When you fell down on the lawn like that, you gave us quite a scare. Are you feeling like yourself?"

Jean frowned. "Who else would I be? I'm always myself. Can't you see? I feel rested, I feel fine. Run all the tests you want later, but I'm ready to leave for now."

_They don't even have MRI's or CAT Scans. I'd forgotten how much of a difference twenty years has made. _

"Well, we did monitor your brain waves," Scott said reluctantly, "since all your vitals were otherwise normal. Blood pressure was fine, no toxins in the body, and no evidence of other injury. But something happened. Healthy twenty-year-old X-Women do not fall to the ground, clutching their head, from a mere badminton match. We suspected an attack of some kind, psychic assault, magical, or something new."

"I must have gotten overheated and passed out. I've been having some headaches lately," she said, lying through her teeth. "I probably didn't drink enough water or something and had a migraine."

He frowned. "I'm not sure that's how migraines work. How long have you been having them? Are you seeing auras, visual afterimages when you look at objects? You should have talked to us. Maybe that could explain the strange readings."

Phoenix signed internally. Scott was asking too many questions she would have a hard time answering. From his hardening body language, and the tone of his emotions, he was swinging towards even more concerned and dubious. Oddly, she found herself reluctant to pry further into his thoughts. With a shock, she realized that they didn't even have a psi-link at this point. It had happened later in the timeline, of course. Pulling off a younger Jean was going to be more difficult than she had imagined in her impulsive decision. She was also wishing she hadn't cored the personality so thoroughly from her previous self, but she couldn't have had two of her in her, now could she? Phoenix riffled through the memories, most of which she had left, or remembered on her own, but there were some annoying gaps. This merited further study. But Scott was still asking questions, and her half-thought out answers, as the other part of her assessed the situation, were only making him more suspicious.

Scott reached a decision. "I'm going to get the Professor now. If he uses Cerebro, he can examine you more closely and check for anything else organic, and find out if you've been tampered with mentally."

_Oh no. She certainly couldn't allow that to happen. Scan me without permission, walk into my mind? I'd notice. So Phoenix reached a decision herself._

"I feel fine, Scott. Really. Could you bring me a glass of water? I do need to freshen up."

She'd also forgotten that Scott and her hadn't even slept together yet. They'd been planning to on that long-ago winter date when the Sentinels kidnapped them on Steven Lang's orders, but it wasn't until weeks later that she'd been recovered, and only months after that had they been intimate. That would have to change.

Reaching up again to stroke his cheek, she murmured, "I love you, Scott," in his ear as she implanted a subtle suggestion. She didn't want to influence him unduly, but the time for questions was at an end. _You can tell the others I recovered on my own in the morning, and that I seemed fine. Everyone else was resting, so you took me back to my quarters. There's nothing wrong with me and you're not worried._

He blinked. "Well, I can't find anything wrong with you, and you seem healthy enough. Let's get you back to your quarters and in the morning, look into the mystery a little more. I'll leave a note for Professor X, and we'll keep our eyes and ears open, but there's nothing else we can do tonight."

She smiled with victory as they stood up and walked to their rooms, hers in the girls wing, his on the guys side of the mansion suites. When they got to her side, it was all she could to prevent herself from pulling him in to the room and making passionate love. That might rise a few eyebrows, though, and there was always the timeline to consider. In her need for intimacy, though, after so many years apart, she could barely hold back from taking her husband to their marriage bed again. This was a younger Scott Summers, though, and there would be a happy future ahead of them. She'd see to that. Now all she had to do was wait. How hard could that be?


	3. Chapter 3

The kitchen table was busy as usual this morning when Jean and Scott arrived, holding hands. The Professor was sitting on the veranda reading his newspaper, while Ororo and Logan were eating breakfast. Ororo had a bowl of cereal and a plate of apple and orange slices, with a cup of steaming herbal tea sitting beside her plate. Logan was frying bacon and eggs in the skillet, flipping them over and whistling under his breath. In the X-Mansion household, breakfast was a do-it-yourself affair.

Ororo rose to hug her, first holding her critically at arm's length for inspection.  
Satisfied, she embraced her friend, saying, "I have worried about you. The Professor assures me you are all right, but I prefer to see for myself." Scott had woken up early in the morning, as was his wont, and told Xavier that all was well with Jean, though they still weren't sure what had caused her collapse. The news had been taken with his usual aplomb, and a caution that another exam should be done in the next few days.

"Really, Ororo, I'm fine! I feel wonderful. But it's so good to see you, I feel as if I was out for years."

"She gave the same line to me," Scott said dryly. "But she seems fine now. Here, let me fix you breakfast, Jean."

Assuring Jean that she should take it easy, a protesting (but not too hard) Jean sat down at the table. Scott buried himself in the fridge, taking out yogurt to mix with muesli, one of Jean's favorite dishes. Logan spoke without turning around. "Glad to hear yer alright, Jeannie. Take better care of yourself today, huh? When the sun is hot, make sure you drink more water."

"I will, Logan. And how are you doing?"

"I'm fine," he said gruffly. Jean had a hard time looking at her old friend, the same appearance now as he would have in her own time. Logan didn't age, or aged very slowly. It was one of the things that she liked about him: the comfort of the familiar. Still, it was disconcerting to see him now. Her last memory of him was the feeling of his suffering as the others attack, and then his death. She was sure they'd killed him, hadn't they? For some reason, she had trouble remembering exactly what had happened to him.

Scott put her food in front of her, with a glass of orange juice, while he loaded up his own plate with some of the meat Logan had been frying. Cholesterol was not considered a serious worry among high-metabolism mutants. Jean looked at her own plate dubiously, not sure what to do. She hadn't eaten in a long time and was rather out of the habit. However, she could hardly not eat and expect the others not to notice. Maybe if she tried a few bites? She took a taste, remembering digestion worked in the human body. That seemed better, but she was out of practice. She supposed she'd have to get the hang of it to keep up her new life, or rather, her old one.

To her surprise she was hungry, and devoured the muesli as if she hadn't eaten since yesterday. But she couldn't remember the last time she'd gotten hungry. Usually she maintained her cell growth at just enough to replenish lost cells, and didn't allow unnecessary waste, such as sweat or excretion. It was easier to take in matter from the surroundings to feed herself, and the Phoenix force gave her more energy than the digestive process, or her own mutant powers, ever could. This was the first time she had enjoyed eating in years.

As Scott scanned through the sports section, he slid her the headlines. Jean looked at the date on the paper and groaned inside. 1980. Twenty years before Scott's death, and more importantly, one month before the shuttle ride where she had become the Phoenix, offered cosmic power in exchange for resurrection. She wasn't looking forward to living that particular painful death over again. Maybe the timeline would have to change this time; she already had her full power.

She blinked. Or did she? She hadn't tried invoking the Phoenix effect yet, "Glad to see your appetite is back," Scott commented. "Eat up, you'll need your strength. We have a Danger Room session planned for this afternoon."

Logan made a harumph. "More training? I had plans to get up in town, do a little sightseeing."

"Do a little drinking, you mean," Ororo said.

"Don't knock it 'till you've tried it, Ororo babe. There are worse ways to relax, and worse places to do it in. Besides, Harry's has got a good pool table and some competition to hustle."

Ororo's mouth tightened at the use of the word "babe." "I will ask you not to refer to me by that word," she said frostily, and the temperature in the room actually dropped a few degrees.

"Hey, I call 'em like I see'm. Want to come tag along, learn a few things?"

"Some days I like you more than others, Logan. This is not one of them."

_A voice came into their heads from out of nowhere. Students, please don't squabble. It ill becomes you. Jean, I am glad to see you are fine, though please tell us if you sense anything strange. Yesterday's event could have been a prelude to an attack, as I am not convinced of the heatstroke hypothesis. The symptoms matched that of a psychic assault, not that of too much sun._

Scott looked confused, and Jean began to worry. She'd implanted a general command for Scott to believe she was fine, and let him come up with his own explanation for what had happened. A few nudges, and he'd told the others it was heatstroke. Scott had already disregarded what the tests said about her normal level of electrolytes. The professor had run the tests, though, and was harder to fool. Unlike Scott, she dared not "push" him telepathically. At least, not yet. Xavier was too powerful, though of course not as powerful as her. She was sure she could convince him of anything, but perhaps not without witnesses to the struggle. She needed the others unaware something was happening, and she needed events to play out as they'd done previously in the timeline. The sooner this incident was forgotten, the better.

"I'll keep an eye out, Professor. But really, I'm fine. In fact, all this attention is starting to worry me. Why don't we have Scott tell us what he has planned for us today? I could use a few less surprises in my life."

Scott grinned evilly and his eyes crinkled up behind his ever-present ruby red quartz shades. "That would be telling. Let's just say I've decided to test a few of your responses. Everybody clean up the kitchen, and come back at 2 p.m. for our workout. If you want to go somewhere after that – he looked at Logan – it's up to you. I recommend the usual round of physical workout on your own. At two o'clock, though, you're mine."

Author's note: In the comics, Wolverine does not reveal his true name to the team until after the shuttle crash. When Jean is recovering in the hospital, he thinks that she could die without his ever having told her his real identity (as far as he knows it). I've chosen to disregard this, because I think it's ridiculous that he would live with them for months and be known only as Wolverine. Consider this retroactive continuity.


	4. Chapter 4

Since Nightcrawler, Colossus and Banshee were on some mysterious mission for the Professor, the breakfast group were the only X-Men present at the Danger Room session. The three men had been sent to investigate someone called "Eric the Red," while the rest were left behind. Accordingly, Scott programmed the room to take into account the diminished strength of the members. This didn't mean he'd take it easy on them. Not Scott Summers, love of Jean's life, part-time hero and full-time team leader.

Scott, Jean, Ororo and Wolverine waited in the bare blank vastness of the metal room, walls echoing with their footsteps, as Professor Xavier manned the controls from above. He looked down through what seemed like glass, but was really a two-way screen, and said, "Begin." If he chose, he could monitor the team completely unobserved. For now, he sat from his throne on Mount Olympus, majestic in his chair, and watched the proceedings. "Marvel Girl, your task is to cross from where you are now to the exit, if you can. Once you have succeeded or failed, the others may assist you."

Jean's thoughts were whirling. Did the professor suspect? Was that why he'd chosen her first? Too early to tell, and she didn't dare mind-scan him. Until she knew for sure, she would have to play it calm and controlled. The risk here was in revealing a higher level of power than previously shown, Ororo was looking at her oddly. "Jean, is there something amiss? You do not look well."

Jean shut her worries down and put on a brave face. "I'm woolgathering, Storm. I'll be alright." Lifting herself into the air, she levitated towards the exit, red hair tossing behind her. Should she do this? How proficient was her younger self at flying? It was getting harder to remember details that should be important. Rubber bullets were lancing at her, though, so memories would have to wait. Robots appeared from the ground to jump at her, silver mechanical menace that made her instantly uncomfortable. The Sentinels had wiped out so many friends of hers in the war.

These robots were not so big, but enough to make her breath catch and her heart pound disconcertingly. Their size, towering in the chamber, made her feel like a child. Smooth and shiny, featureless with a cylindrical body, metal pylons for feet connected by flexible cables and with grasping manacles for hands, they still reminded her of Sentinels. She didn't trust anything whose mind she couldn't read. She evaded the robots easily enough, anyway and put up a shield to deflect the bullets. Behind her, she could hear Scott gasp. She was making it look too easy. Marvel Girl would have had to strain to do simultaneous actions. For Phoenix, though, it was child's play to stop the bullets in mid air and waltz around the robots, dodging as easily as if this was an ice rink and her an Olympic gymnast on skates. The exit was right in front of her now, large sign saying "This Way to the Egress," a strange example of Xavier's humor.

As she was almost there,though, a siren blared and lights flashed, and she lost concentration to fall to the floor ten feet below. The Danger Room at this level would probably have had the floor extend a soft landing or trampoline, but she panicked. Keeping track of who she was supposed to be and what she was doing in the present left her dangerously off-guard, so she reacted with instinct. Invisible forces pushed at the ground below, stopping her descent. Countervening forces pushed left and right at the onrushing robots. They rocked back and forth like Tinker Toys, then exploded as she pulled their arms and legs off. The headless torsos, unsupported, crashed to the ground.

Jean knelt suspended only a foot off the floor, holding herself by telekinetic force, gasping atflashbacks to her past. Hands touched the nothing of the invisible platform, stabilizing herself as she breathed deeply, face white. "Stop the session!" she said hoarsely. "That's enough."

Apparently, Professor Xavier didn't think so, because more robots appeared from the floor, lumbering into place and swinging their great arms. Some had electric saws on the ends, others, lasers or guns, and a few presented pincers to seize and hold unruly combatants before tearing them apart. Jean reached into herself and prepared to invoke the Phoenix. But then she heard the magic words, "X-Men, attack!" as Cyclops, Wolverine and Storm took the field. Soaring on the winds filling her black cape, Storm was the first to reach her and blew the nearest robots away with the power of her namesake. Crimson beams from Cyclops felled another, and Wolverine jumped into action to disable one trying to catch him.

Jean had never been so relieved in such a long time. For a moment, she had forgotten this was a drill. The guns fired rubber bullets, the lasers would only sting, and the pincers not truly close enough to hurt. Professor Xavier was testing them, not assaulting them. Jean was unable to move, though, and remained in her protective bubble, watching the others fight. They kept telling her to help, Logan yelling "Snap out of it, Jeannie," and Scott telling her to "Get back on point, Marvel Girl. We work as a team or not at all."

If that was the lesson, though, she refused to learn it, and stayed like that until no more robots appeared. Only then did her field disappear, and Cyclops approach, as she fell shuddering into his arms. The rest of the team neared, but stared stunned, uncertain what to say.


	5. Chapter 5

Events found Jean later that night sobbing in her shower as she tried to let the memories wash away with the bathwater. She'd already tried soaking for hours in the tub, but what she wanted gone wouldn't wash away that easily. So she'd given up the refuge of the serene pool, and let the throb of the showerhead, turned up as high and as fast as it could go, drench her muscles. Nothing seemed to help, though. Jean had fallen apart in Scott's arms in hysterics. Finally they'd taken her to the infirmary, where they'd administered a Valium for a light sedative and taken her to her apartment. They'd wanted to run tests then and there, but Scott put his foot down. She wasn't very stable right then and needed someplace more relaxing.

"Besides, do you really want an upset telekinetic loose in the lab? Give the sedative a chance to work and then do your scans. Professor Xavier can keep a watch on her telepathically."

"I would be more comfortable with that, Scott, if I could read her mind. But her shields are formidable at the best of times, and right now, the inner turmoil makes it unpleasant for me to enter. Whatever has upset her is making helping more difficult. I will agree to let you sit with her, but only if you bring her back down in a few hours and notify us at the first sign of trouble."

Moira, the Scottish scientist and former paramour of Xavier, sighed and agreed. "You'll not be getting through to her right now, Charles, or I miss my guess. I can't find anything physically wrong, though I'd like to run some more tests on a few of these results. Let's table this until tonight and in the meantime, see if we can find any other causes of what's happening. I wouldn't rule out a brain tumor, though I think that would have shown up on the last scans. Could it be some sort of mental disorder, of the regular, psychiatric kind?"

Xavier considered the question for a moment, running his hands in habit over the smooth-grained wooden handles of his wheelchair. "Yes, but what kind? Perhaps a conversion disorder, or simple anxiety, what they used to call hysterics? If so, I'm at a loss for what could be causing it. I'm also heartened to see that her power levels have increased. She's not slated to develop the telekinetic strength she displayed in the Danger Room for at least another few years, according to the charts of her typical power growth. Perhaps something has triggered a 'growth spurt', accelerating the progress of her mutation?"

The two left the room, still talking, but Jean could hear them even while they were out of earshot. She could hear everything and she didn't want to, so she walled off their thoughts, curled deeper into herself. Dimly she realized Scott was lifting her in his arms and taking her away. She was pleasantly reminded how strong he was, a physical strength he took for granted that her own muscles would never match, at least not unaided. It reassured her, gave comfort, that Scott was around. She let the Valium take her away into sleep, and if she dreamed, she did not know it.

When she woke up, groggily, her mouth tasted foul, and the X-Men uniform irritated her, now smelling of old sweat and fear. It didn't fit her the way the custom-designed outfits would in the future, tailored molecule by molecule to mold to her body, allowing for maximum comfort and protect. But then, Sh'iar technology hadn't been installed yet, and Reed Richards unstable molecules were at a premium, used only for mutants who needed the special fabric to change with their powers. She could make her own outfit, of course, if she wanted. But that would be giving the game away, so she didn't. Instead, she simply told her body it wasn't tired anymore, and adjusted the neurochemicals accordingly. Convincing Scott to let her shower while he cleaned up himself next door was the work of a few moments, the hooks left in his mind still present.

The bond went two-ways, she told herself. He was ready for it now, he just didn't know it. As an older Scott Summers, the two would be linked as lovers in a pairing of minds, mental cords letting each always feel the other. She couldn't do that fully now, or he'd suspect, so she'd put a one-way link in. She could send suggestions, but not receive, and they would be indistinguishable from his own thoughts. Later, in the fullness of time, she would make the tie two way, when the moment was right. Anything else would disrupt the timeline.

As she bathed, though, she found herself scrubbing with soap and brush to clean her skin off, and for some reason couldn't stop. She finally showered in order to break the action, humming a tune to a song she couldn't remember, softly, and then wrapped one towel around her head and the other around her body when she got out. That was when she heard a knock on the door, which she ignored. Scott should know better than to hurry her. She was startled when the door opened anyway and turned around only to see Ororo, her presence a cool blue of calm emotional radiance. She had been so intent on what she couldn't remember…something…that the presence of her best female friend's mind had escaped her.

Ororo wore a dakini, long white hair tumbling down her back, the traditional African dress looking good on her. Immune to the elements and heedless of modesty, Ororo didn't always like to wearclothes, but she'd adapted for American society.

"Jean? I am sorry to have surprised you. I wanted to talk to you before the others did."

Jean spun around, one hand on her neck. "Ororo! I'm sorry I didn't hear you knock, I was miles and years away. Come in, come in, as long as you don't mind me getting dressed," she added.

Ororo shrugged. "You know how I feel about clothing. Why be ashamed of your body? If you are not embarrassed, I am certainly not." She stood in the middle of the room, poised and waiting for her friend.

Jean continued dressing, a little uncertain of what to do. She dropped the towel and began putting on her clothes, something nice that she could wear to dinner. She couldn't remember if she was supposed to feel prudish or abashed in the presence of another woman while dressing. It had been so long since the question came up, she couldn't remember. She supposed that as all the X-Women changed in the locker rooms together, modesty wasn't a very large issue among teammates.

"Jean? Are you feeling alright?" Ororo frowned.

_Oh yes. Humans were supposed to talk. She had to remember that._

"I'm sorry, Ororo. I'm not really sure what to say. I suppose you're going to ask me about what happened, today, aren't you?"

"Actually, I'm not. When you want to talk about it, if you do, you will. I shall not pry, you should know that. Instead I thought I would offer a flight and a momentary escape. Would you care to fly with me? I can provide the lifting, courtesy of the Mother's winds, if you would like to feel free for a while."

Jean smiled. "What a wonderful idea! I think I would like that very much."

Storm opened the window, and Jean levitated them outside, each carefully stepping foot onto what felt like invisible platforms below their feet. Then the winds began to blow, and soon they were far above the mansion, looking down on the doll house below, toy cars and tiny trees growing even smaller as they sailed higher. Jean felt like Wendy, being led off to Neverland with Peter Pan. It was a rare occasion when she did not use her powers, did not need to, in order to fly. For now, she let the winds take her.

They flew for hours and hours, as the sun set and darkness rolled in like breaking waves on her heart. For a while, she forgot the past, and was born anew in the present, laughing at times, crying at others. Ororo never said a word, never even held her in her arms. But her winds held her all the same, and Jean basked in the kindness of a soul whose winds took away her worries, at least for an evening.

Finally, they had to stop, but only because Storm brought them back to the mansion. Jean would have gone on and on, ignoring the cold and hunger and thirst forever, and she knew Storm was not tired, but there were other needs to be filled now. When they set foot on earth back in the mansion's driveway, Jean hugged her friend, red-haired and white-haired mutant both at peace, fire and wind calm for once. "Thank you. Oh, Storm, it has been so long since I have laughed like that. So long since I have known peace."

Storm raised her hand to Jean's brow, and gently traced a line on her skin, searching for something only she could see. "Somehow, I think I knew that. Jean… something is terribly wrong. I do not know what, but you are hurt, divided, lost. It has happened suddenly, but perhaps it has been building for sometime. Around you I see chaos and fire and pain."

She blinked, and raised her hand back down. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that."

Jean knew why, though. Ororo could feel the distress in the world, see the suffering that only the Phoenix could erase, and knew at some level how much Jean hurt inside. With the wounds she bore, the mind scars that were her memories, the suffering of the world had become part of her own world, a future that was to come. Jean had no peace inside her, and Storm knew that.

"I rarely offer prophecy, not since my days in Africa. The professor told me I was not a goddess, only a mutant, yet part of me still believes I am. What is a goddess, if not someone who comforts their followers, hears petitions, and has powers to answer their prayers? But I could not answer all their prayers, and even then I knew. I cannot bring the dead back to life, nor turn back time. I cannot heal."

_But I can, thought Jean exultantly. I can resurrect, fly through time, take molecules apart into atoms and turn atoms into life! I can do anything. All I need is faith in myself. If I'd had that faith years ago, I could have fixed the wastelands, brought the X-Men back. I have the power. I have everything I need. _

"Ororo," she began. "What if you knew of a terrible mistake? If you could remedy a problem, a terrible tragedy, go back and fix the past and make everything new again? What would you do?"

_I'm not a goddess, but I'm close enough. I know where to begin. I'll fix the oldest harm first. Ororo doesn't need to hear about what will happen to us in the future, if I don't change it... At least not yet. Maybe I can show her how easy change is, maybe she'll come around and help me._

Ororo frowned, then smiled sadly. "I sometimes have that fantasy too, Jean. I had many days as a child when I would wake up and hope to find my parents alive, and I back in their home. Comforting as that was, I had to give that hope up to survive as a thief and a beggar, without mother or father. For years, especially around the time of their death, I would dream of them. But they come to me rarely now in my memories, and I will see them again for real only when I die. Their features live on in me, and in the children I someday hope to have.

"But what do you mean, tragedy? What has happened in your life that you want to undo so desperately? What ghost haunts you?"

Jean let telekinesis straighten her hair, smoothing the strands as easily with a wave of motion from her mind as she wanted to smooth out the hard future to come. The red curls hung limply, bereft of winds now, and she turned to walk through the courtyard toward the side entrance and the dining hall.

"Someone very close to me died when I was younger. I want to fix that. Bring them back. There's nothing wrong with that, is there? We're supposed to help people, make things right whenever we can."

Ororo looked off-balance. "Jean… No one can reverse death. You can't. I can't. Thunderbird is still dead. My parents are still dead. We can only do so much." She hesitated. "Why are you talking like this? Jean, you begin to scare me."

"Storm! Look at this team. Look at what you've seen in the past few years. The villains you fight always come back from the dead. Those we love stay dead. What if it was the other way around?"

"Jean… I have seen amazing things on my time on this team. I have seen what I cannot explain. I have seen magic, cyborgs, vampire, people who claimed to be gods. But all the deities were fallible, and no one truly rose from the grave or the clean earth. I have seen false resurrection, but never true. There is a point beyond we cannot return as who we were. You must accept that. Death is the way of things."

Jean turned away, avoiding eye contact.

"I believe we come back in other forms, sometimes, and that the Goddess welcomes us home," Storm added gently. "But we each believe something different." _Ororo kept talking about rebirth and Christians and Judgment Day. The Phoenix ignored her and the memories of a girl who had told her best friend about the church she sat in every Sunday with her family until the day she went insane. The Phoenix had already come back to life more than once, and knew it was possible._

"We have powers, amazing powers," Jean said. What if we used them to help people, instead of hurt them? Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

Storm looked off-balance at the conversational switch. "It's not our powers that hurt people, Jean. It's us who choose to use our powers to do so. My rains can bring life to the land as easily as they can bring down an opponent. Your mental powers can build as easily as destroy. You know that. It's what Professor Xavier has always taught us."

Jean looked impatient, off in some inner world, not really hearing what was said. "All the X-Men seem to do is fight. That's why we train. We hurt others so there will be lesser hurts to those we care about, right?"

"We fight, yes, but we fight for peace, and in an ideal world we would not have to fight," Ororo said. "We fight so that others may have peace, because the world is never ideal. Jean... You told me long ago about Annie Richardson, your childhood friend, and what happened when she died. Is this what troubles you so?"

Jean raised a hand, as if to block the words from entering her mindI don't want to talk about her anymore. You don't understand. You should forget I said anything."

Ororo forged on doggedly. "You were trapped in her mind, sharing her death, as your telepathy happened for the first time. The shock would have torn anyone apart, especially a child. I know about the institution. Is this about -- "

Jean tore her hands through her hair, huddled upon herself. She clasped her elbows and shook her head from side to side.

"I don't have to talk about this. The Phoenix promised me that. I want Scott back. I have to bring him back."  
Ororo looked in the face of insanity, pity in her eyes. "Dear Goddess. Oh Jean, I am so sorry. We will get you help. I don't know what happened, but we'll get you help."

"I don't need any help," Jean said hoarsely. "I'm the Phoenix."

She raised her head, eyes wide and tearful. But the tears dried as red flames

crackled around the edges of redder hair. "No more. I don't want to talk any more."

Because Jean loved Ororo like a sister, the Phoenix was merciful. She reached out to the carotid arteries with a telekinetic grasp, and gently applied pressure. Blood stopped reaching her friend's brain, and Jean didn't have to hear any more about Annie Richardson. Winds began to stir the courtyard, pushing down stalks of grass and flattening flowers, picking up dust and tossing it into the air. Before the scene could get out of hand, though, Jean reached into the center of the brain that controlled psychic mutation, and closed it down. Gently though, because she loved her.

Ororo slumped to the ground, eyes wide and mouth gasping for air, unconsciousness soon coming. But Jean loved her, so she let air move through the lungs again, pushed the blood properly and filled it full of nutrients, making sure the whole time that Storm wouldn't remember any of this. Ororo sat on the ground like a broken child, and Jean's eyes filled with tears. She sat down to hug and cuddle her sister, soothing the mind and healing the damage, removing all the pain. In a minute, they would get back up and walk into the dining room. In a minute, she would make believe this never happened. For now, she held Ororo like she had held her other best friend on the day of the hit and run when a car had taken Annie, when Jean had gone mad and lost her friend forever. For now, she let her mind drift back, rocking Ororo as the minutes passed on.

From the shadow of a rooftop, though, someone watched the confrontation and its fallout, his thoughts a perfect mirror of his surroundings. Jean never had been able to read his mind easily. He watched, not even a growl escaping his lips, and Phoenix never knew he was there.


	6. Chapter 6

Dinner passed uneventfully, everyone laughing and joking, the cares of the day forgotten. Professor Xavier was there in his wheelchair, and even cracked a smile from the vaults of his buried good humor as he poured a class of Merlot and toasted the X-Men. "To the Future!"

"To the Future!" echoed the students, and they tipped back their own glasses, drinking age ignored for the night. When you flaunt the laws of physics, live on your own private estate, and are part of a small army, breaking one more rule more or less didn't seem so significant, though Jean. Most of the others rarely drank, she knew, Logan excepted. Scott only sipped at his to be polite, though she'd seen him drink a beer before. Everyone except Logan and Banshee were underage, at least in America. Logan poured another glass, red brimming to the top, and watched her considering, heart rate and pulse in perfect condition despite the alcohol. It would take far more than that to make him drunk, she knew, and even then it wouldn't last long.

Ororo sipped mineral water, disdaining even the gesture of conviviality, but her smile was as heartfelt as the rest. Her memories were now incomplete, edited, but sanity had been restored. Jean was glad for that.

(Next: dinner -- skip over.)

Scott walked her back to the room, all smiles and holding hands and courtly love. She could see through the red shades if she wanted, take off the blinders and hold back the deadly rays that could punch holes through walls, destroy buildings. She could so much more, she knew. Jean longed to show Scott, wanted to stroke his soft hair and kiss him while she stared into those eyes unafraid, tell him about the future that would never happen now, because she was here to prevent it. But Jean was patient, and she could wait. There would be time for that later, when Xavier had gone into space after Lilandra and there was no telepath left to worry about. For now, she contented herself with a chaste kiss on the cheek, a heightened pulse rate in her suitor and husband to be, and closed the bedroom door behind her with a smile. She leaned against the wood for a moment, looking straight ahead at the red-headed reflection in the wall mirror above the dressing table, a study table to her left, a bed to her right. Simple, but more than she needed, luxury enough just to be here. She sighed, content.

"Getting too comfortable, huh, Jean? I thought you'd get tired of pretending by now."

She jumped, startled out of domestic daydreams, and put a hand over her beating heart as she turned to confront Logan, who had been standing somehow unnoticed in the corner, thoughts not even screened but steady-state blank fulfillment of a Zen hunting state, his emotions somewhere she couldn't read. But she could tell, from his posture of clenched-jaw tension and the yellow costume, that he was ready for business. And business for Wolverine meant violence. He'd left the headpiece off, though, and she could look into his face without any concealment or barrier between them.

"Pretending? What are you talking about! And why are you in my room? Leave at once."

He shook his head. "No, Jeannie, I've been watching you. I know things. I know you're hiding something."

"Who gave you the right to spy on me? Why don't you trust a fellow X-Man?"

"Because you're not one of us. Or if you are, you've changed, and I don't know if I like what you've changed into. I've watched you eat. You act like you haven't had food in years. Sometimes you forget to breathe, when you're thinking about something, and when you remember, your heart starts up again. Ever since that badminton game, you've been different. The smell's the same, but you're not the same."

Jean considered. She was tired of lying. Wolverine had been such a good friend to her, and she found herself oddly more reluctance to enter his mind unbidden than she had Scott's. She missed the easy camaraderie between her and him, the slipping of self from person to person, mind to mind, the barriers only there to keep sanity intact. This time's Wolverine, even with the memory implants and black-ops scars still in his head, was a comforting presence she missed being able to confide in.

He unsheathed his claws. "Jean, or whoever you are, I'm not kidding. I saw what you did to Storm."

The Phoenix laughed at her, and eyes glowed with gathering energy. He was on the edge of harm, she saw. He didn't have the balance, the sanity, that he would ten, or even twenty years from now. But she had to risk it.

"Storm gave me no choice, Logan. She suspected too much. I had to keep her safe."

"How!? By wiping her mind, knocking her out, scaring her when she tried to help? By all rights I should gut you right here, but I haven't yet because..."

"Because you love me? I know, Logan. I love you, too."

He looked stunned, taken back by words he never expected to hear. But because he was who he was, he plowed on. "Tell me what this tragedy is, tell me what happened to you, convince me you give a damn about us. Otherwise you're some monster living in our Jean, or Jean finally went crazy, snapped like she didXXXX

"It's hard to tell you, Logan. Easier to show you."

With that, she reached out and forged the mind link despite his protestations, strength of will and training not a match for her power at this range. In the blink of the inner eye they were elsewhere, in a New York where an older team, some members already fallen, battled against a wave of Sentinels.

Later that night, confrontation with Logan. Flashback/memory to day in New York city when Scott died in sentinel attack, bond passed to logan, jean retaliates with wiping out NY. Group scene, more than two characters, true memory flashback which logan and current jean are caught in reliving the future/past. Sentinel attacks and nuclear weapons, human/mutant war caused by jean. Jean kills logan, brings back a good imitation of him.

Final chapter: locks the power away, goes through motions of her life, then on shuttle, dies when she refuses to unlock the power from her unconscious mind. Dies sane in an act of sacrifice.

Final Scene:

The pieces of wreckage from the shuttle fell harmlessly into the bay. The X-Men fell to earth as well, to their surprise very much alive, secluded and guarded inside a telekinetic shield. The bubble vanished soon after hitting the water, but the force field absorbed and cushioned the blow, jolting far less than many a super villain's fist had done. When Scott, Logan, Cassidy, Kurt, and the others bobbed to the surface inside the shielded radiation cell, the most secure part of the space shuttle that had been their prison during the flight, they were easily able to tear through the metal of the shielded radiation cell when the telekinesis ceased.

Everyone looked around, panicked into a search and rescue for Jean Grey. Everyone, that is, but Logan. He knew what was happening now. Many of his memories had been blurred by the Phoenix-self, turning them into a worn tapestry where past and present Logans ran together. Jean had left him a message, though, and it played for him now in a voice inside his head.

_It's better this way, old and beloved friend. Where I'm going, you won't follow me, not for many years, more years than you can dream of just now. I took something from you, and now I'll give a little back. I'm leaving you the knowledge of what really happened, so you can understand what I've done and what I'm sacrificing._

Wolverine, treading water as the others, led by Scott, searched fruitlessly, shook his head. He understood now what Jean had done and what she had sacrificed. She gave up her future to redeem her past, gave up the present days to come so that those she loved would have a future. Jean wasn't coming back, but she'd left him the steps needed to guide the X-Men through harm's way. He'd never tell anyone and no telepath could read it from him. He could keep a secret. She'd loved truly and deeply, in her own way.

Up in the sky, a brilliant light arced down from the heavens into the ground somewhere out past the city. It could have been just fragments of the space station still burning up in the atmosphere. Logan was no rocket scientist. But he liked to imagine it was Jean playing at being Phoenix again. From his point of view, the light could as easily been rising from the ground up into the sky. Maybe out somewhere in the beyond, a light made of the energy from inside a sun blazed, every color in the spectrums shifting up and down as a bird of fire raced for the infinite.

Postscript

I'm glad you liked my work! Thank you for reading me. I doubt I will ever go back and write the missing chapters. It's been years for me. I've gone ahead and finished the story, so you can see what happened. In my mind, it's a happy ending, or at least, the only one that works.

Mack 24, 2007

The original plot for Final Flight went something like this:

Jean returns to the past, but she's not where she expected to be, the 2005 (or so) year when Scott died and the end of the world as we know it began. Instead, she finds herself a month or two before Jean went on the shuttle ride that ended with her almost dying and accepting the Phoenix's offer. Forge and Stark's device was intended to fix the dark future, and the device worked perfectly fine. The problem, though is that the crisis started way back here. I need to look over a history of the X-Men to figure out what exactly was happening in the months before the shuttle ride, and when this is. I would like for it to fit within canon, as something that could happen, as much as possible.

Jean is now disembodied, pure psi-energy, because only consciousness could go back through the past. She winds up taking over the body of her younger self at the mansion, callously casting the previous psyche aside and plundering her memories for the things she needs to pull off the act. Initially she is happy to be living with Scott and thinks everything is solved; she only has to enjoy her life now and wait until she catches up with the future, where she will prevent Scott from dying. Unfortunately, she has to keep altering minds and perceptions to hide, because she is not the relatively sane younger Jean that everyone knew.

Logan, who used to be highly attracted to her back then in his more feral state, leaves the room every time she comes in. He knows something is off. Also, Jean only eats and sleeps when she remembers to, because her power maintains her body at a molecular level.

Logan's behavior and lack of attraction doesn't raise enough warnings with her now, but later on it will be another sign of what is happening. Cyclops is feeling odd as well, and there will probably be a bedroom scene, post-activity, where he says, "You never used to be this wild. You never used to ask me for this." Angst, turbulence, unhappiness. He doesn't know what's wrong with Jean. Storm, her closest friend at this period, tries to offer help and counseling, provide a balancing force. The younger, more spiritual and gentler Ororo helps enough that Jean realizes she needs help but can't change enough. Probably she tries to tell Storm some of the truth, as Storm herself used to think she was a goddess before realizing she was wrong.

The reader should be more and more disturbed at Jean, who is not good with inhibitions and is used to getting her way. I'm going for creepy here. We begin to find out exactly how the apocalyptic future came to be: a routine Sentinel raid killed Scott. Jean lost control of her powers in anger and destroyed New York (or something) as a consequence. America stepped up the Sentinel program, mutants and humans went to open war, nuclear weapons became involved, and only the mutants could easily adapt to the new biosphere, which was ruined. Jean has glossed many of these events over in the previous chapter because she is somewhat crazy and blames the government and the other mutants, not herself. The Phoenix is not a cosmic entity and Jean is not a goddess. It is her subconscious, her Id, the unrepressed expression of her full powers.

Jean is not actually omnipotent or omniscient; she is very powerful but she does have limits. She can't truly raise the dead (or can she?), she can't travel through time unaided. Gradually she comes to realize this and exactly what she has done to herself.

Stuff happens, Jean loses more control, bad things happen around her (vagueness here), she vaporizes Wolverine. She brings him back by reconstructing the body and putting in a blend of the memories of the present-tense Wolverine and the Wolverine she remembers from her alternate future. This should be extremely unnerving. Who is Logan now, anyway? Did he really die?

Jean decides that if she hadn't lost control of herself when Scott died, it would have been another time. She's the problem. On the shuttle that fateful day, she was only talking to herself when she made the deal with the Phoenix. This time through, she decides to save the X-Men, but reject the Phoenix's offer -- essentially locking her power back down. So she dies for good at the end of the story, with no resurrection to come, but the dark future averted.

I like the resonance of how this plays out.

Timeline:

Jean's date

Phoenix

Space station, kidnapping,

Shuttle

resurrection

2019 time of attempt

2010 Scott's death, war begins

2004 Kelly's bill passed


End file.
